Share this post:

Simon Wren-Lewis, writing at Mainly Macro, is reminding us this week that the greatest political failures of our age were not simply caused by bad governments but by a media that prefers popularity to accuracy.

His analysis of the Covid Inquiry shows a familiar pattern: experts warned us of danger, the government ignored them, the system failed us, and the media helped create the conditions in which that failure became possible.

The astonishing part is that we have seen this pattern before.

Again and again, over more than a decade, newspapers and broadcasters have chosen what they thought the public wanted to hear rather than what the evidence showed to be true.

In doing so, they have misled the public, encouraged weak or dishonest politics, and contributed to national decisions that have damaged the UK for years.

The problem is not abstract; it is painfully real. When the media get the big stories wrong, the consequences are measured in lower wages, poorer public services, political instability… and in the case of Covid, tens of thousands of needless deaths.

And the reason is straightforward: when journalists prioritise what sounds popular over what is correct, politicians follow the headlines instead of the facts.

Wren-Lewis’s argument is worth expanding with some clear examples. They show a consistent failure in how the media treats expertise, and how that shapes political reality.

Please take a moment to complete the Vox Political Reader Survey.
Your answers are anonymous and will help shape future coverage.
Click here to take part.

In the early 2010s, experts in economics were warning that austerity would cause long-term harm – not improvements – to public finances and public services.

They pointed out that when interest rates are at or near zero, governments should invest heavily in the health service, care, housing, and infrastructure because the cost of borrowing is minimal.

That is simple economics.

Yet most newspapers and broadcasters pushed the opposite argument.

They repeated slogans about “balancing the books” and compared government spending to a household budget, even though these comparisons are false.

The result was years of cuts that undermined social care, weakened the NHS, slowed economic growth and created the staff shortages the UK still suffers today.

Voters were misled because the media preferred a story about “tough choices” to the harder truth.

Brexit

Then came the Brexit debate, in which the media repeated the same pattern.

The overwhelming majority of experts said leaving the European Union would harm the economy.

These were researchers who study trade, business investment, and the value of the pound for a living.

Yet the media treated their knowledge as just one opinion among many.

Commentators who insisted Brexit would cause no damage – even though they could not produce credible evidence – were given equal time on television and radio, as though expertise and guesswork were of equal value.

This gave the public the impression that the truth was unclear, when in fact it was very clear indeed.

The result is visible today in higher prices, weaker investment and lower growth.

Once again, the public were encouraged to believe something comforting rather than something true.

Covid-19

The pandemic revealed this behaviour in its starkest form.

The Covid Inquiry has made clear that the UK government wasted the crucial weeks of early 2020, when it had time to prepare and possibly avoid the first national lockdown.

Expert warnings were sounded.

Other countries were already taking action.

But those warnings did not shape the news.

Newspapers owned by billionaire proprietors focused on the economic inconvenience of restrictions rather than the need to save lives.

Broadcasters gave airtime to people claiming we could ride out the virus and “take it on the chin”.

Boris Johnson, who openly joked that newspaper owners were his “real boss”, followed their lead.

When the government finally imposed a lockdown, the delay meant far more people died than needed to, and the restrictions had to remain in place for longer.

A delay of just one week cost more than 20,000 lives.

But because those deaths were the result of what didn’t happen – because people were not protected in time – the media treated them as less real than the social gatherings in Downing Street that eventually forced Johnson out.

Channel migrants

This pattern is not limited to older events; it is happening now. One of the clearest examples is the constant media focus on small boat crossings.

The facts are straightforward: the numbers arriving by this route are tiny compared to the UK’s overall population, and far lower han arrivals in several European countries.

The crisis in the asylum system has been caused largely by Home Office incompetence and by ministers who refused to process claims promptly.

But the newspapers that want to stir fear shout “invasion”, and broadcasters follow their lead.

Politicians then try to outdo each other with ever more performative policies – deportation schemes, floating barges, and pointless crackdowns – instead of fixing the broken processing system.

Most voters believe small boats are one of the country’s biggest problems because the media has told them so, day after day, even though the facts show otherwise.

This is how political culture decays.

Journalists talk endlessly about how policies “play” with the public rather than whether they work.

In doing so, they teach politicians that presentation matters more than results.

They avoid calling out lies directly, so politicians conclude that lying carries no cost.

They focus on the story of the day, not on long-term consequences, so governments learn that they can fail without being held accountable.

Wren-Lewis argues that the UK has suffered from a string of incompetent prime ministers, and it is hard to disagree.

But these politicians did not rise in a vacuum. They rose in a media environment that rewards showmanship over substance and outrage over expertise.

It is no surprise that when broadcasters choose political journalists – not health specialists, not scientists, not economists – to front their coverage of complex issues, the questions asked are about politics, not facts.

We heard far more about “protecting the economy” than about the simple maths of how a virus spreads.

We heard far more about how Brexit “cut through” than about what it would do to trade and investment.

We heard far more about how austerity played with the electorate than about the damage it would inflict on public services.

The result is a country where the public is poorly informed, politicians are let off the hook, and expert knowledge is treated as optional.

The Covid Inquiry has shown that this is not merely a democratic failure: it is a human tragedy.

When the media fail, the cost is paid in lives, livelihoods and the future of the country.

The question the UK faces is no longer whether the media get things wrong – the evidence for that is overwhelming.

The question is how much longer we can afford a system where truth is secondary to popularity, and where the most important decisions of our time are shaped by what sells rather than by what is right.

That is why sites like Vox Political and its forerunner Vox Political matter.

This Site has tried to do the opposite of what the big media organisations have chosen to do, aiming to tell readers what they need to know, not what focus groups or billionaire press owners think will “go down well”.

The record speaks for itself.

On Austerity, Vox Political warned that it would be ruinous long before the political class admitted it.

On Brexit, Vox Political showed the factual economic evidence even as the national broadcasters pretended the facts reflected just one opinion among others.

On Covid-19, Vox Political followed the science while ministers and their media cheerleaders tried to pretend it was possible to negotiate with the virus.

And on countless other issues, Vox Political has gone where the evidence leads, not just where the headlines point.

That is the purpose of proper journalism: to seek fact, to test claims, to expose failures, and to inform the public so they can make decisions based on reality rather than rhetoric.

This Site exists to do exactly that.

In an age when most political coverage chases drama, Vox Political sticks to facts.

When most commentary indulges in comforting myths, Vox Political explains what is actually happening.

And when those in power want the public to look the other way, Vox Political keeps our readers focused on what really matters.

It should not be unusual to offer political reporting, analysis and insight rooted in evidence rather than performance.

But it has become unusual – and that is why Vox Political is essential.

Share this post: